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Topic: Ysart, help!!! (Read 3968 times)

I don't know if this is on the right board, but anyway here goes :wink:

Had a lovely evening last Friday with an elderly glass dealer friend, who brought round several paperweights.

Each had a PY cane, (two flowers, a fish and others,) and he told me they were fakes!!! made in the 1980's

Now, to be honest, I think he had bought them as "all right", as you don't spend money on 7 or more fakes surely? and then was informed they were wrong.

Now, to me, they looked OK, the flower ones were lovely with really complicated canes as the centers, but I am no expert :lol: :lol:

When I asked Ron on Friday his explanation was Paul Ysart was tied into a contract which said he could only make weights with the PY cane for one person and one outlet and made these "fake" weights to sell on the side, so to speak.

What I would really like to know is, how can you tell a fake? who decided they are fakes? why were they made? would Paul Ysart really have done that?

Anonymous

If you log onto Franks superb site there are examples of genuine and fake PY weights... and if my memory serves me well an explanation also.I would add however that distinguishing genuine from well made fakes requires a good deal of hands on experience and knowledge of the techniques used by the artist in question..... and me....I wouldn't know one from the other .I dont know who told Ron the explanation you quoted but I hope they all got home ok :wink: :wink:

Anonymous

To be honest, I'm more confused than ever. It was lovely seeing the paperweights, but it hasn't helped any :oops:

If I decide to buy I will ask here first.

Hi Barbara

I didnt realise from your posting that you were considering buying one or some of these.... in that case I do strongly advise you to proceed with caution...and I must stress that in no reflects on the sellers credibility but his knowledge here does appear somewhat limited. What would really help you is if you could get some photographs first, post them here and then one of paperweight experts here could abvise you further.One point worth mentioning is that a good forger often has considerable skills so again dont be swayed by the complexity of the pieces you are being show as confirmation of positive attribution.

No, I don't want to buy any for now. But the funny thing was I saw a very small paperweight in a silver setting at a boot fair Saturday, and the seller said it was a Ysart. I forgot to go back and have another look, and for a tenner I would have risked it!

The reason I said I thought my friend bought them for real is the fact they still had his price labels on the bases £300-£500 each!! Ouch! He tried to hide them, then came out with "that" story. What are fakes worth today? Something, I suppose even if for research purposes.

It sounds to me that Ron has picked up on comments that are passed around but which are often based on either half-truths or just gossip.

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Each had a PY cane, (two flowers, a fish and others,) and he told me they were fakes!!! made in the 1980's

Early 1980s is correct for the first known appearances of the fakes.

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Now, to be honest, I think he had bought them as "all right", as you don't spend money on 7 or more fakes surely? and then was informed they were wrong.

Possibly as you say, Barbara, purchased as ok. But I have known cases where, in more recent years, some batches of a dozen or so have been bought together at a cheaper price than used to be asked.

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Now, to me, they looked OK, the flower ones were lovely with really complicated canes as the centers

Yes, many of the fakes flower examples do appear to be be rather nice, and complex canes have appeared in lots of these weights.

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When I asked Ron on Friday his explanation was Paul Ysart was tied into a contract which said he could only make weights with the PY cane for one person and one outlet and made these "fake" weights to sell on the side, so to speak.

Not true, as far as I am aware. His contract for signed weights was with an American importer / dealer (Paul Jokelson - one of the papeweight world's leading figures of the 20th century). Although in the later years, Paul's "home market" products often had an "H" cane signature, many were not signed. Paul did make "beer money" weights from the 1930s and possibly into later years as well.

I have heard yet another comment recently that the original fake py cane (as first known in the 1980s) was made by Paul. However, if that was true, Paul would also have had to have used somebody else's lampwork, and not the pieces made by his helpers, either - the lampwork in the fake weights is not consistent with Paul's work.

Take a look at my detailed info in the link (and the links from there) and see if the Flowers etc. are like the ones you have seen. And compare the coloured grounds too, because many of these are distinctive in the fakes. But the real clue is in the colour of the p (pink) and y (orange) in the signature cane, assuming you can get a close-up view. Paul Ysart's "py" was not two coloured.

If you can get some photos - please post them here, or send to me directly (email address in my profile) and I should be able to let you know if they are right or wrong.

Anonymous

It always strikes me as very odd when someone says " heres something worth a lot of money and its yours for just a tenner"........ Philanthropists are something of a rare occurence at a boot sale and therefore to come out with a name like Ysart does make you think that the person has either picked the name up as a good one to quote or the very very unlikely situation of an article genuinly accredited by someone and yet with no idea of its commercial value. I err on the side of cynical disbelief.... but... if it was something that I really liked the look of then a tenner would be excellent and then anything else that added to its value a bonus..... if I didnt like it I would have walked away. That doesn't mean I haven't bought some right turkeys though Barbara....some of them so wrong even a turkey would have turned its back on them :roll: :roll: :wink: Sometimes you'll find your gut instinct rather handy in situations such as these.

With regards to what value a "fake" Ysart attracts ... hopefully someone will be along soon to give you an idea as I am sure they do have some value.

Yes, the fake py weights do currently have a "market value" in their own right as they have gained a "collectable" status among many paperweight folk.

I always said I would never have any but after having receieved lots of questions, and not being able to show my own examples, I did eventually buy a couple.

I think the prices I last heard, where these were offered at large, outdoor fairs was around £75 per item. But folk have paid £150 or more for some of the better looking ones. I've not seen any on eBay for many months now (hooray!).

The fish one looked like the first fish, but was purple, the flowers similar to 02 and 04. The others were just cane patterns, but not like the spoke ones pictured, more like the backgrounds of the butterflies 07 and 08, but where the "picture" is, the cane pattern continued.

The PY cane looked like the top right, but I have not seen a real one so I couldn't say what the differences are.

It would have been nice to see a proper Paul Ysart along side the others just as a comparison.

This as really made me think though,as I had no idea the fakes were as nice as they are! It is very easy to see why they are passed off as genuine.

One quick other question, the fakes being made in the 1980's, was Ysart really expensive then? Missed the 1980's, was nurse training (and partying :wink: ) at the begining and a wife and new mother at the end, so wasn't into glass or collecting at the time :roll:

Am older, but not much wiser , but am soaking up as much information as I can to make up for those missing years

I was the guinea pig for the first batch and paid £290 each for about a dozen. Had they stopped there the faking may never have been discovered as the first batch were very good quality. But he was greedy dealer and got his glass-making cronies to churn them out in large quantities, several hundred is probable. They only stopped when the police started raiding - they found nothing mainly because they were too eager to get the ring leader, a very wiley dealer much too clever for them. It get gave the others a chance to hide the evidence.

One woman, retired, bought thirty and lost her life-savings.

At that time the better Paul Ysart weights fetched around $1,000 a piece and in all my years of hunting had only ever found a handful of genuine weights.